


I know I'll take the leap (if it's worth the fall)

by iittaliia



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bickering, Canon Compliant, Character Death Fix, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Everybody Lives, First Kiss, Fix-It, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Overuse of italics, Post-Canon Fix-It, Stanley Uris Lives, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22269085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iittaliia/pseuds/iittaliia
Summary: Richie takes a deep breath, deciding to just go for it. ”I have to tell you something and I think if I don’t do it now I literally never will - and this is the perfect moment anyway because I can andwillliterally jump off a cliff when this goes to shit.”//Or, they all survive and go to the quarry and Richie would rather jump off a cliff than have an adult conversation.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 19
Kudos: 510





	I know I'll take the leap (if it's worth the fall)

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't read the book, or watched the miniseries or the new films properly, but I've still found myself obsessed with these morons. I was picturing everyone as they were in chapter two, but my interpretation on their personalities comes from other fics so if I'm completely off base I'm sorry.
> 
> Also for the purpose of this fic the quarry is deep enough that the Losers are not able to stand in the water. I don't know if that's true or not.

Somehow they all survived.

It’s an outcome Richie honestly did _not_ see coming, because in what reality do you fight a demonic alien killer clown from space - _twice_ \- and live to tell the tale? 

They are all drenched in God knows what, all filthy and disgusting and even though there’s blood - there’s _definitely_ blood, somehow no one has any major injuries. In all honestly Eddie might have gotten the worst of it, with the stab wound on his cheek, and it’s not like all of them won’t be full of bruises and in desperate need of a full body massage - after the bruising’s healed, of course - but everyone has all their limbs in tact and they are _alive_ , and that’s more than any of them could have hoped for in all honestly.

Richie’s not sure who starts making their way over to the quarry first, but after staring at the collapsed house long enough someone does, silently encouraging everyone else to do the same. The walk’s not long, but every step they take away from the ruins makes the air that much fresher, the sun that much brighter and the weight on their shoulder that much lighter. No one’s saying anything yet, but Ben and Bev’s hands have found each other and Richie can’t tell who is holding who tighter. Mike’s arm is around Bill’s shoulder as the other man rests his head on Mike’s. Stan’s wrapped his arms around himself as he walks in step with the others, and Richie makes a mental note to give him a hug no matter how much of a fight he’s going to put up.

And Eddie -

Eddie is next to Richie, the last two of the group. He’s walking slower than he normally would, usually the first to arrive in places even with his short legs, but now he seems to be in no rush. Richie glances at him and notices that he’s picking at the bandage on his cheek and Richie immediately goes to take his wrist and bring the hand down. Eddie glares at him in response, which is fucking _rude_ considering he knows damn well not to pick at an open wound.

The expression is so familiar that Richie briefly entertains the thought of moving his hand to take a hold of Eddie’s, but quickly drops both the thought and his hold of Eddie’s wrist as he notices that they’ve arrived at their destination. 

They’ve stopped in some kind of a weird semicircle, staring at the edge of the cliff. It seems like someone should say something, and Richie hopes to God it doesn’t have to be him.

It doesn’t. Bill, always the leader, takes a deep breath before looking at each one of them, his tentative smile growing bigger and more certain with every passing person. 

”We did it guys”, he says. Bev clears her throat very pointedly and Richie snorts out a laugh and _immediately_ gets his arm slapped by Eddie.

”Figure of speech, Beverly”, Bill groans with an eye-roll, but it’s fond and Bev blows him a kiss. Richie watches Ben closely, wanting to make sure there isn’t going to be any unnecessary drama, but Ben continues to be the nicest person in existence and the only emotions Richie is able to decipher are relief and unyielding love and adoration for Bev.

”It’s over”, Mike says, looking around like he can’t quite wrap his head around the whole thing yet. ”It’s -” he starts again, but Stan cuts in.

”Is it?” He asks. He’s staring at the ground in front of him, shoulders tense and arms still wrapped around himself. Richie can sense Eddie tensing too, and for half a second he wants to smack Stan for spiking up Eddie’s anxieties, but then immediately feels bad because Stan’s anxiety is just as bad, if not even worse when it comes to this.

But Mike takes a step towards Stan and reaches his hand out, placing it on his arm gently. ”It is. For good this time. I promise, Stan - and everyone. It’s done.” Mike glances at the others quickly, making sure everyone hears. The others are nodding along and even Eddie nods, once, but it’s firm and decisive.

”Yeah?” Stan asks, meeting Mike’s gaze and getting a reassuring squeeze as a response. ”Yeah. Feels different, doesn’t it?” He says, and slowly but surely Stan’s mouth is starting to quirk up and the tension seems to finally ease up as he lets his hands fall to his sides again.

”Okay thank fuck then, let’s _never_ do that again”, he says, so deadpan and matter-of-fact that it even gets a surprised laugh out of Eddie, and it really makes Richie question if _he_ was the right choice from their group to turn into comedy.

The tense moment is broken, relief and giddiness coming to its place. Bev jumps first, because of course she does. Ben’s a quick second, probably not wanting to spend any more time apart from the girl of his dreams than necessary. Then Bill, Mike, and finally Stan, who sighs loudly and glances at the sky before joining the others.

Richie can hear them, the splashes first and then gasps for air before laughter, free and unfiltered laughter, and that’s the sound of freedom and happiness if he’s ever heard one. 

Eddie takes a tentative step forward, glancing over the edge, and it doesn’t look like he’s about to jump but Richie’s mind goes into panic mode because this, right here, might be the last moment they have alone together in a long time.

”Hey, Eddie, wait.” 

The words are out of his mouth before he has time to come up with a follow up, but apparently Eddie doesn’t need one as he turns to look at Richie with relief written all over his face.

”Oh thank _God_ I do _not_ want to jump in there - I have an _open wound_ on my face what the fuck is wrong with everybody?” He exclaims, pointing at his face as if Richie’d forgotten. ”Can we just skip this and go to the townhouse?”

”What? No, that’s not what I…” Richie starts, abandoning that sentence when he sees Eddie frown in confusion. Richie takes a deep breath, deciding to just go for it. ”I have to tell you something and I think if I don’t do it now I literally never will - and this is the perfect moment anyway because I can and _will_ literally jump off a cliff when this goes to shit.”

”What are you -”

”Eddie, I love you. Like, _love_ love you. I’m in love with you. Like, get married, move to the suburbs, adopt a bunch of puppies and get some rocking chairs to grow old together in. I’m pretty sure Robert Smith wrote _Lovesong_ about my love for you. I don’t want there to be any kind of confusion about what kind of love I’m talking about here.” Richie says it all in a rush, slow enough that Eddie can hear every word but quick enough that he can’t interrupt.

Not that Eddie would have, apparently, because he just stares at Richie with a stunned expression for a moment that feels to last fucking forever before -

”Richie, I -”

”Okay yeah, _not_ doing this, bye!”

It’s not Richie’s proudest moment, definitely not, but in his defense he _had_ been upfront and honest about his intentions to jump from the start. But still, he can see the moment Eddie realizes what he’s about to do too but by then it’s too late and Richie’s already sprinting towards the side of the cliff, hoping that the others have moved far enough to not be in danger zone.

He can hear Eddie scream something that sounds a lot like a death threat and it’s the last thing he hears before he’s enveloped in water. It’s cold, so fucking cold, but it’s just what he needs, and it makes him feel oddly refreshed. He wants to open his eyes to see how close the others are and which way he should swim to end up on shore quickest, but knows not to do that because it’s not as if he’d see much through his cracked lenses anyway. 

But more than that he wants to just stay there, in the safety of the dirty quarry water, for as long as he possibly can. As a child he could hold his breath for over two minutes, but he can already feel his lungs starting to burn and knows that all the cigarettes and weed are to blame.

So when he’s starting to really feel like he’s at his limit he stays under for a moment longer before he comes up for air with a gasp. He can hear someone, possibly Mike, saying ”Oh there he is” and someone else, Bill maybe, breathe out a relieved ”Finally”.

Richie would feel bad for possibly worrying his friends if all that wouldn’t be irrelevant compared to the absolutely loudest shriek he’s ever heard.

”You _asshole_!”

Richie turns to look towards the noise and finds six blobs, one of which is is screaming at him. 

”You made me fucking jump in here even after I said I don’t want to fucking do it!”

Richie knows who it is, knew immediately, but still can’t help but ask for confirmation. ”Eds?”

”Not my name you fucking obnoxious and insufferable piece of _shit_ ”, Eddie yells, throwing his hands up in anger which throws some water to Bill’s face, who flinches but doesn’t say anything. It would be pointless anyway since Eddie isn’t paying him any attention as he starts to swim towards Richie. 

”I’m never going to fucking forgive you for making me do this here, in this filthy ass water in front of all our friends -"

Like on queue Richie hears Ben murmur "what's happening?" to Bev who immediately shushes him.

Richie is going to drown, is what's happening. Eddie is swimming closer to him with such fury and determination in his eyes that Richie is weirdly thankful that he'd managed to drop down as far from him as he did, because otherwise Richie would surely already have taken his last breath by now.

Eddie's only a few meters away now and Richie quickly contemplates dunking underwater and swimming away, far enough that Eddie won't immediately catch him and then he could climb to shore somewhere safe and escape to Mexico or something. 

As if he's reading Richie's mind Eddie's glare deepens. "Don't you fucking dare", he spits out and sounds so furious that Richie freezes on the spot. Eddie's in front of him now and Richie opens his mouth to say something along the lines of ' _please don't kill me, I know I've had it coming for a long time but please don't, I promise not to call you Eds ever again, please don't_ -', but what comes out is more of an _umph_ -sound as Eddie smashes their lips together. 

It hurts as their teeth knock painfully and Richie can taste blood but in all honestly he's not sure if that's new or a result of the fight with an alien clown they just survived from.

But Richie can't move or do anything and his eyes are still open and the whole thing can't last longer than maybe two seconds, but those feel like the longest two seconds of Richie's fucking life, and he thinks it all must be a cruel accident. Eddie must have miscalculated the distance between them and their lip-lock is just an unfortunate side-effect of his enthusiasm to finish his quest to ensure Richie's early demise.

That is until Eddie grabs Richie's face in between his hands and groans out "fucking c'm _on_ you asshole" and then he fucking _bites_ him. Bites Richie's lower lip like that's something people do, like that's something _they_ _do_. 

But it does kicks Richie into action and he wraps his arms around Eddie, pressing their bodies flush together without really thinking if that was what Eddie meant, but apparently it was close enough since Eddie in turn goes to wrap his legs around Richie, locking his ankles behind his back, and Richie's mind fucking short-circuits because those are Eddie's legs, his _thighs_ , around him. 

Richie's glad swimming is not something he forgot in those 27 odd years, because if it was they would have sunk down already, since his legs are only moving on autopilot as all the thoughts disappear from his head as he kisses Eddie with all he's got. He kisses Eddie like he's wanted to kiss him since he knew what kissing was, pouring all the love and years worth of heartache and pining into it, kisses him like it’s his only chance - and for all he knows it might be. Eddie is still holding Richie's face firmly in his hands, like he's making sure Richie's not going anywhere - which is fucking _idiotic_ because Richie would rather _die_ from the lack of oxygen than part from Eddie long enough to take a breath in. His glasses are all crooked between them and they hurt where they press against his face, but it's nothing compared to how much he had been hurting for 27 years without even knowing it.

"At least Ben and Bev had the courtesy of doing that shit underwater", someone, _Stan_ , mutters. Richie honestly wouldn’t pay any attention to him if it wasn’t for the fact that Eddie is suddenly leaning back and Richie is going to _kill_ Stan for interrupting. Eddie drops his hands from Richie’s face to his shoulders and turns to stare at Ben and Bev, who looks like she’s about to burst.

"You guys did _not_ make out in this water."

Eddie says it like it has personally offended him and Richie can't help but stare at him in utter disbelief. Eddie sounds slightly out of breath, but other than that he seems completely fine, complete opposite to how Richie is feeling.

”It was romantic”, Ben shrugs, but he does sound a bit apologetic which doesn’t even make sense because it’s not as if he and Bev making out affects Eddie in any way.

”I believe the words you’re looking for are unsanitary, disease infested and _stupid_.”

”Well I wasn’t about to climb Ben like a tree like you did to Richie”, Bev points out with a raised brow. Eddie glares at her but doesn’t look embarrassed, instead moves his hands to Richie’s bare neck and Richie _definitely_ doesn’t let out an audible whimper at that.

Stan snorts. ”Eddie, I think you broke Richie.”

Eddie turns his gaze back to Richie, who stares right back. Richie wants to say something, but his mind is reeling with ’ _why did you kiss me what does this mean do you love me back please love me back all I’ve ever wanted was for you to love me back I love you so much_ ’ mixed with ’ _I’ve dreamed about touching your thighs since you wore those red shorts and now they’re wrapped around me and I really need you to acknowledge this before I fucking lose it_ ’. He doesn’t say either of these thoughts, instead just breaths out ” _Eddie_ ”.

That seems to be enough, because Eddie’s face softens and he moves his hands up Richie’s neck to go play with his curls.

”I love you too”, Eddie says, fond and soft. ” _Obviously_.”

Someone’s _aww_ ing but Richie couldn’t point out who even if he’s life depended on it, because did Eddie just tell him he loved him back? He doesn’t have enough time to ask for a confirmation when Eddie’s expression changes again, this time to a frown with one eyebrow raised.

”I can’t believe you said _when_ this goes to shit - what the fuck - did you seriously expect this _not_ to be the outcome?”

”Yes”, Richie replies truthfully, still too dumbfounded to try to say anything more coherent.

”Then you are literally the only one”, Stan says somewhere from their left and the others seem to be nodding too, and if Richie’s whole focus wouldn’t be _Eddie Eddie Eddie_ he would flip them all off - but he doesn’t have long to be bummed about that because Eddie does it for him, and Richie didn’t think he could love Eddie any more than he already did but apparently he was wrong.

”Wait -” Eddie starts after returning his hand back to Richie’d neck. ”What exactly was your plan here? Confess your love, jump off a cliff to avoid confrontation and _what_ , move to Jamaica or some shit?”

”I was thinking Mexico.”

”And what would you do in Mexico?”

”Drugs?”

Eddie slaps Richie’s shoulder as most of the rest try not to laugh out loud, failing. Stan doesn’t laugh but he does sound very amused as he asks ”Were you asking Eddie for permission to do drugs in Mexico?"

”Can you not ruin this moment with your running commentary?” Richie shoots back, surprised he was able to form a coherent sentence to someone else as Eddie was _still_ wrapped around him.

”I don’t know, can _you_ hold it in your pants for a moment longer?”

”Oh believe me, it’s not even in my pants anymore”, Richie counters with a wiggle of his eyebrows, and it’s definitely just a result of years of using crude humor as a defense mechanism and not the truth, which is why he thinks it’s unwarranted when Eddie smacks him upside the head and suddenly Richie’s already blurry vision goes blurrier.

”What the - you dropped my glasses!” He yelps out, offended but not surprised. 

”You were being gross!” Eddie shoots back,  sounding very annoyed but it’s not really all that convincing as he’s still not even trying to unhook his legs  from behind Richie’s back - which is why Richie feels safe enough to respond with ”Oh you don’t even know how gross I can - _ouch_!”

”Stop talking!” Eddie yells again, this time after pinching the skin behind Richie’s ear. 

”You asshole”, Richie mumbles back, and even without his glasses he’s pretty sure that’s a smirk starting to form on Eddie’s face. ”I can’t fucking see”, Richie adds after a second, because he was quite enjoying being able to appreciate Eddie’s beauty from this close, and now he’s only 80% certain that Eddie’s doing his signature sarcastic eyebrow raise. 

”And that affects your ability to shut the fuck up _how_ , exactly?”

Before Richie has time to respond Stan speaks up again. ”Oh my God they have somehow gotten worse”, he says, staring at them in disbelief as Bill and Ben dive underwater, supposedly looking for Richie’s glasses. Ben probably out of kindness and Bill because he doesn’t want to listen to them anymore.

”Don’t say God’s name in vain, Staniel”, Richie scolds and hears Eddie let out a laugh that was definitely an accident. It delights Richie to no end, as he’s long ago made his life mission to get as many laughs - accidental or not - out of Eddie. It seems like if he plays his cards right he might be able to make that his full-time job, hopefully.

”Not my God so I can do what I want”, Stan deadpans, and Eddie laughs again. Richie irrationally wonders if dueling Stan for the right to make Eddie laugh would be the right course of action, but decides against it as Eddie starts brushing his fingers through Richie’s hair again.

”So can we”, Eddie says, quieter than he has so far, and Richie can see Bill come up from the water, waving something that looks like his glasses, but he really couldn’t give less of a fuck as Eddie leans forward again, slotting their lips together like it’s his second nature. 

Richie smiles in to the kiss and Eddie does too, so it’s more them just grinning against each other than actually kissing, but it doesn’t matter.

They have all the time in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> That's it! Thank you for reading, please feel free to validate me through kudos and comments if you'd like. I also have two other Reddie fics if you'd like to check those out.


End file.
